Bruce Von Stiers

There is a popular story of an undersea battleship that was written by Shunro Oahikawa. It has been adapted for the animation market and made into a feature film. To be precise, it is two episodes put together to make a feature length film. This film is titled Super Atragon and has been released by ADV Films on DVD.

There aren’t too many extras on the disc. There are only the scene selections, language choices and trailers for a few of the other titles that ADV Films offers.

The film starts out near the end of World War II. There is a Japanese undersea battleship that goes toe to toe with an Allied ship just like it. After the ensuing battle, both ships sink. End of story, right? Wrong.

We flash forward to today’s world. There is a whole bunch of weird stuff going on in the Polar Regions. A U.N. task force is sent out to find out what’s going on. One of the young people on the U.N. ship, Go Arkisawa, is thrown overboard after the ship is being attacked by some laser beams coming through the middle of strange looking rings hovering in the air.

Go wakes up to find himself on a ship that he thought was destroyed. It is the Ra, which a secret group has repaired. The Ra and other vessels are part of an operation that Go soon finds out about.

It seems that there is some race of beings that live below Earth’s surface. They have watched mankind wail on each other for centuries. During the time of World War II, these beings decided to find out if the human race was worth saving or destroying. They allowed some special materials to be found by each of the opposing forces in the war. These materials could be used to make weapons capable of mass destruction or they could be used for peace. Instead the Japanese made the Ra and the Allies put together their own ship called the Liberty.

Go has a girlfriend, Annette, that he is separated from when he is captured by the Ra crew. But he finds out that Ann, as Go calls her, is with these people. He learns that Ann is one of the beings from below the surface. She, and the people of the Ra, are trying to stop the beings from below the surface from destroying the world. The main being on the other side is called Avatar. She and Ann were originally sent to observe the surface dwellers and make a determination about their ability to maintain a peaceful co-existence.

The animation for this film was excellent. The battle scenes are great, with gun turrets blazing and the superior technological weapons that the underground people have. The dubbing was really good too.

One of the things that was unusual, but nice, was that the musical score was done by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. The film was directed by Kazuyoshi Katayama.

The English Language voice cast included Aaron Krohn as Go, Amanda Winn as Annette and Tiffany Grant as Avatar. Some of the other voice actors were Rob Mungle, Robert Peeples and Jason Lee. The Japanese Language cast included Tomokazu Seki and Junko Iwao.

Super Atragon is a good science fiction tale. There are some areas of the program that could have been explored better, such as Go’s family history, but overall the story was pretty solid. The plot line of a race of middle earth people has been around for a long time, but Super Atragon buts a new spin to the story.

Look for Super Atragon at your favorite video and DVD store. You might also want to check out the ADV Films web site at www.advfilms.com.